


Ways to Fall

by Liviapenn



Category: due South
Genre: Drama, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2000-04-09
Updated: 2000-04-09
Packaged: 2018-11-11 03:41:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11140359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liviapenn/pseuds/Liviapenn
Summary: Ray goes for a walk and comes to a realization.This story is a sequel toPrelude to Winter.





	Ways to Fall

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Speranza, the archivist: this story was once archived at [Due South Archive](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Due_South_Archive). To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in June 2017. I tried to reach out to all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Due South Archive collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/duesoutharchive).
    
    
    Ways to Fall
    by Livia
    04/09/99
    Website: http://internettrash.com/users/livia/duesouth.htm
    
    There was this special kind of snow, when Ray was a kid. Or maybe not.
    Maybe the snow then was just like snow now-- bitter stinging grains of
    ice that infiltrate the spaces between coat and skin with a precision
    that suggests an almost malevolent intelligence. Maybe.
    
    But back when Ray was a kid, snow seemed to come in big blurry lacy flakes
    that didn't fall so much as drift, swirl and tumble down out of the sky.
    It was the kind of snow you could catch on your tongue, and as a child
    Ray always thought it might taste sweet. Like sugar.
    
    But you can't catch snowflakes, not really. And when you grow up nothing's
    ever as sweet as you expect, and Fraser... Fraser is gone. 
    
    Time passes. Ray lies defiantly in bed. He's just fucking going to stay
    here. World's not gonna come to an end if Stanley Ray Kowalski takes
    a pass on throwing himself on fists, on bullets, on broken glass today.
    
    He lies in bed. He does the math. From the day he first kissed Stella,
    to the day she put her ring on the kitchen table and walked out was twenty-two
    years, eight months, and seventeen days. It's been just nineteen short
    days since Ray kissed Fraser for the first time-- two weeks and change.
    And now it's over. 
    
    Four hundred fifty-something hours. He's worked cases that have lasted
    longer than that. He's had colds that lasted longer than that.
    
    Nineteen days. Oh, nineteen nights. And it's over.
    
    He gets up eventually. Gets the coffeemaker going, turns the radio on
    to kill the silence. Surfs the stations till he hears Tori Amos doing
    her thing, crying out loud for everyone's sins. 
    
    _why do we
    crucify ourselves
    
    why do we
    crucify ourselves_
    
    The song's almost over but Ray stands there and listens anyway. She sounds
    like he feels. 
    
    _why-- 
    do-- 
    we--_
    
    Oh boy does she sound like he feels... Ray rubs a hand across his stubbled,
    dry face and heads for the shower, 'cause unlike Fraser he fucking looks
    it the next day when he gets no sleep, so there. 
    
    You can't catch snowflakes, he reminds himself. You can't catch 
    snowflakes, though as a child Ray tried till his hands stung and burned
    cold. Snowflakes melt and disappear and all you ever get is ice water
    on your face. 
    
    Fraser was like that. He'd talk at night sometimes. His words would spill
    slow across the white expanse of rumpled sheets like snowflakes over
    a windswept field. Untouchable, untastable, all French or Inuit. Never
    English, so Ray never got a word of it.
    
    Sometimes he heard his name. It almost didn't sound like his, not with
    the accent on it, the way Fraser's voice slides when he's speaking French.
    Maybe it is the language of love like they say. Ray never really had
    a thing for French girls, but if they all talk like that-- oh, yeah.
    A guy could fall for that. Fall hard.
    
    Even if he was never there for breakfast. 
    
    Ray couldn't ask for that, either. 
    
    ---
    
    The first night Ray woke up and Fraser was talking French he almost rolled
    over and kissed that clever mouth. But something about Fraser's tone
    made him lie low and listen. He doesn't _parlay-vous Francais_ ,
    but he could still tell the Mountie wasn't reciting the Mountie 
    handbook, or rehearsing a lecture on the proper way to gut a caribou.
    There was emotion in his voice. Urgency. Not worry, but a sense of importance.
    Like it was important for Ray to understand.
    
    Which is kind of a dumb interpretation, Ray knows, considering Fraser
    was yammering on in French which he knows Ray doesn't speak, not to mention
    he was supposed to be asleep. But maybe there's some things, hard to
    say maybe, that Fraser could only tell him in foreign lingo in the middle
    of the night. Maybe. 
    
    And hell, Ray could understand that. 'Cause there's stuff he wanted to
    say but didn't, stuff he wanted to know but never asked. Like why Fraser
    was always so quiet. Does he think making noise during is undignified
    or some shit? Or is it Ray, is he not good? It could be. Not like he
    had experience with guys.
    
    He wishes Fraser would say something, because Ray can't ask. He knows
    it's goddamn unfair to the Mountie-- case in point, he'd been fucking
    him for three weeks before he finally had the balls to give Fraser head.
    He made himself do it, driven half by curiosity and half by a nagging
    sense of fair play; Fraser'd go down on him at the drop of a Stetson,
    and it didn't feel kosher to always be taking. And it was... It wasn't
    bad. Fraser fucking loved it, that was for sure. Or at least he seemed
    to. He'd take it when Ray offered happily enough, but he never 
    _asked_...
    
    Still, a lot of the old lines are still there, dark and unerasable. And
    even if he truly, cross-my-heart wants the answer-- there's no way in
    hell the phrase 'Fraser, am I good at sucking cock' is gonna cross Ray
    Kowalski's lips. Not any time soon. 
    
    The actions came a hell of a lot easier than the words. In truth, they
    always have. Ray knows himself. Knows if he had managed to say 
    something, it'd probably have come out something like-- _hey, why doncha
    fucking moan once in a while, ferChrissake. Lemme know I'm not alone
    in the goddamn bed fer fuck's sake._
    
    Even if he could say that, he wouldn't. Who is he to make the Mountie
    self-conscious? Why make him think Ray's comparing him to other lovers?
    'Cause he isn't. There's no one like Fraser, man or woman, in or out
    of bed. 
    
    Sometimes Ray wants to ask him about his other lovers-- who they were,
    what they were like. If there were any guys. There probably were; Fraser
    seemed to know what he was doing the first time they tumbled. But then
    again, it's Fraser. Super Mountie. He always knows what he's doing. 
    
    All this worrying about words is moot, anyway, Ray figures as he walks
    out the door. He managed to fuck it all up without any at all.
    
    ---
    
    He promises himself he'll get over it. He'll get over it because there's
    no other fucking alternative-- Ray is not going to stalk Fraser. Frase
    deserves better than that. Mountie wants it over, then it's over. Finito.
    The fat lady has sung, so just deal with it. When he goes for lunch at
    noon he even leaves the GTO's car radio off. Because he's not going to
    go. He's just not going to go there. 
    
    But he's not hungry so he just drives, he's not hungry but he's empty,
    empty deep inside, and then he's parked at the edge of a lot full of
    Christmas trees and he's getting out of the car. The sound of his boots
    crunches through the grainy snow in the gutter like the rough broken
    beats of his heart, and he is going. He's going to do it. He's going
    to stand on the goddamn corner and stare at the Consulate, stare at Fraser's
    window for who knows how long, until his ears freeze and his nose runs
    and the cold is squeezing cruelly at his bladder but fuck it, he's going
    to stand there till--
    
    "Andy, out of the way!" There's a brunette in a camel coat blocking the
    sidewalk, trying to single-handedly drag an eight-foot Christmas tree
    over to a rusty station wagon without crushing any of what looks like
    about nine kids, none as tall as a yardstick. "Cammie, watch out for
    your brother, please!" 
    
    The kids are bundled up in what looks like an entire Goodwill's worth
    of riotously colored earmuffs and mittens and scarves and boots. The
    mom is small like the kids, with a bright green scarf failing to restrain
    all of her windblown hair. The Christmas tree is perfect, huge and round
    and full, and entirely uncooperative. Momma looks like she's losing a
    fight with a big green grizzly bear.
    
    Ray steps in, grabs the trunk to steady it. "Hey there. You, uh, need
    a hand?" 
    
    She stops, clutching the tree, nostrils flared with effort. She has dark
    brown eyes and a few wet pine needles stuck to her cheek. Apparently
    Ray doesn't set off any of her Mom Alarms, 'cause she flashes him a warm
    smile. "Sure."
    
    "'Kay." Ray bends his knees, clutches at a few good-sized branches near
    the base, and the woman readjusts her grip. They lift together, and she
    leads him, walking backwards, to the station wagon, the kids jumping
    up and down and chattering, each one running in its own elliptical orbit
    around the tree like small, warmly dressed asteroids. 
    
    Ray and the brown-eyed lady set the tree down next to the car, and breathe.
    The lady digs the car keys out of her pocket, and a small voice announces,
    "Momma I'm cold!" 
    
    "Then get in the car, hon." Momma says tolerantly, opening the door.
    
    "Momma can we have hot chocolate?" The group of what turns out to be
    only three kids scrambles into the front seat with much pushing and scrambling
    and excitement-- "I get to do the star!" and falling over each other
    like puppies. "Momma, Harry's pushing me!" 
    
    Ray laughs, and looks back at Momma, who's unlocking the back of the
    station wagon. "Cute kids."
    
    "They're a handful." she grins. "A couple handfuls."
    
    As they drag the tree around to the back, Ray barely avoids stepping
    on one more kid, smaller than the others. The littlest little one has
    two brown ponytails, a purple raincoat and big eyes. She hangs onto Momma's
    coat as Momma and Ray wrestle the tree into the back as far as it will
    go, then tie it in securely with brown twine. 
    
    "That should do it." Ray brushes a hand across his forehead, sweating
    slightly even in the chill.
    
    "Yeah." Momma offers Ray her hand. "Thanks. I really appreciate it, ya
    know?"
    
    "No problem." Ray smiles. If Momma wasn't wearing gloves, he'd be checking
    for a ring. She knows he's looking, and she's not giving him the cold
    shoulder, either. Sure, she's probably married-- but everybody likes
    to know they've still got it. He holds onto her hand just a little longer,
    then feels a tug on his jeans and looks down. 
    
    The littlest one tilts up her cherub face and says something, but Ray
    can't hear her little voice over the traffic and her siblings' muffled
    shouts. He goes down on one knee, looking her in the eye. "What was that
    there, honey?"
    
    "I saw Santa's house." Littlest informs him in a delighted whisper. 
    
    "Oh, wow." Ray raises his eyebrows and grins. Yeah, that sounds like
    a day in the city. Sit on Santa's lap, then get a tree. "The real Mr.
    Santa Claus, huh?" he continues, then hears a burst of stifled laughter.
    He glances up at Momma, who's trying to hide her grin behind her mittens.
    She beckons Ray, who stands again.
    
    Momma puts a gloved hand on his shoulder and leans in close over Littlest's
    head. She smells like woman-sweat, and wet, fresh pine tree. Nice. Festive.
    Sexy. "Hey, I don't have the time or the inclination to shlep four kids
    through Macy's toy department, y'know?" Ray nods, and Momma continues.
    "But we came past-- I guess it's the Canadian Embassy, or somethin'?"
    She gestures down the street with her chin. "And Sherri saw a Mountie."
    A burst of giggles warm Ray's frozen ear, and then Momma continues, familiar
    delight creeping into her voice. "In the red coat-- and now she thinks
    she saw Santa's house." 
    
    "Oh," says Ray, and manages to paste a smile on his face before Momma
    pulls back, grinning. "That's... that's cute." And it is. It's cute.
    He even laughs-- and almost, almost doesn't stumble when he steps back
    up onto the curb. "Well-- Merry Christmas."
    
    "Yeah! Thanks again!" She waves, tossing her head a little as he backs
    away. "Merry Christmas to you too!"
    
    Ray is walking blindly now. It's a sign, is what it is.
    
    He's fucking doomed.
    
    [end]
    
    


End file.
